"What is that thing, General?" Emmeline asked. Her voice was steady, but her hands tightly gripped her silver daggers.
"It's the real owner of the board," Albrecht said coldly.
He didn't lower his sword. The Primordial Cleaver pulsed in his hand, the crimson veins on the black steel throbbing in sync with his heart.
The colossal blue eye in the sky blinked once. The sheer scale of it distorted the atmosphere, painting the ruined streets of Aetherion in a sickly blue light.
"TUTORIAL SERVER DELETED. INITIATING PHASE TWO. WELCOME TO THE REAL GAME, NATIVES."
The overlapping voices faded, replaced by a deafening, mechanical grinding sound that seemed to come from the center of the earth.
Albrecht’s red System interface violently flashed in his left eye.
[Global Alert: Sector 04 Integrat
